Still, Helen didn’t think Coop had ever caused his parents any serious concern. One summer night, when he was sixteen, he’d gotten drunk with friends and thrown up on the beach in front of Nona’s house, but Mark Cooper had given him holy hell, and Nona, playing the role the Coopers had asked her to play, gave the boy an old-fashioned tongue-lashing which had put the fear of God into him. Helen smiled, remembering how the grown-ups had conspired to terrorize Coop out of his reckless overindulgence in alcohol.
And then Helen frowned as she remembered that she and Worth had played out many scenes of censure, anger, and threat with Teddy, and with Teddy their condemnations did not seem to work.
The ride was bumpy as Grace sped the convertible along the dirt lane leading up to the house. To the west lay Charlotte’s garden, rows and rows of plants, which might have looked attractive except for the ugly wire enclosure. Charlotte said the fence was necessary to keep the deer out, and Nona didn’t mind; she couldn’t see the area from her living room or from the formal garden, where she liked to spend her summer days. They passed the old barn, which had been converted into a garage and toolshed, with the long new addition of Charlotte’s potting shed added on, the wooden shingles still pale gold, not yet weathered to silver. The driveway circled around a large concrete vase spilling over with ranunculus and pansies. Slate stepping-stones led right, to the boathouse and boat ramp, and left, across the lawn to the mudroom and kitchen. But Nona would be in the living room, so Helen and Worth went under the opening in the high privet hedge and through the formal garden and in through the French doors, where Nona was seated in her chaise by the window.
“Hello, darlings.” Nona held up her arms. She wore one of her trademark tailor-made outfits, silk slacks and a matching silk top with a mandarin collar, toggle closures, and embroidered cuffs. Today, it was coral with white trim. Helen thought Nona probably had thirty of these outfits in a range of colors. They had a simple elegance to them which Nona completed by adding her pearl choker and pearl earrings, just the luminous white of Nona’s hair. The older woman’s face was creased with age, but when she smiled she was young and beautiful.
“Mother. You look wonderful.” Worth bent to kiss his mother’s cheek.
“Thank you. What’s that in your hand?” Sharp-eyed Nona didn’t waste a moment. “You greet me with your cell phone in your hand?”
Worth grinned sheepishly. “I’ve got just one more piece of business to conclude.”
Nona gestured imperiously. “Take it outside. Or into the library. No business in the living room or in my garden.” She held her arms up to Helen. “Honestly. How do you put up with him?”
“Actually, I have no idea.” Helen kept her voice bantering as she bent down to kiss her mother-in-law.
Nona patted the side of the chaise. “Sit here a moment, dear. Let’s catch up. Grace and her tribe have already invaded—”
“I heard that, Mother!” Grace yelled from the hallway.
Nona laughed. “The great-grands are darling, and Mandy and Claus ride herd on them very capably. Mellie, however, as the first woman on earth ever to endure pregnancy, is languishing, and Mee—well, poor Mee is taking this divorce really hard.”
Divorce, Helen thought, and wasn’t sure whether the idea frightened or tempted her. Perhaps a bit of both. Absentmindedly, she said, “Your party will cheer her up.”
Sharp Nona caught something. “You look tired, Helen.”
Helen put her hand to her windblown hair. “Not tired, really, just disheveled.”
“Grace drives that convertible like a maniac. I told her I will never ride in the backseat again.”
Helen laughed. “I don’t blame you. How’s Charlotte been treating you?”
Nona lay back against her pillows with an affectionate smile. “I see very little of her these days. It’s her busiest time in the garden. She’s up at four-thirty every day. I know, because I’m awake then, too, but I’m too lazy to get out of bed. I just lie there, watching the sky lighten and listening to the birds singing. I can hear her coming down the stairs, tiptoeing like a little children’s-book cherub so she won’t wake me. I hear the door to the mudroom open and close; I always mean to have someone oil those hinges, and I forget it as soon as I remember it. I love lying there, imagining her out in her garden, smelling the fresh morning air, gathering up all her tools, hearing the world wake up.”
What a gift it was, what sheer delight, to hear her mother-in-law speak with such fondness about her daughter! A rush of love and gratitude swept through Helen, and she said, impulsively, “That reminds me, Nona! I made a present for you. I’ll get it now.”
Nona held out a hand to forestall her. “But my birthday’s not until tomorrow.”
“I know, but if I give it to you now, you can use it first thing in the morning.”
Nona quirked an eyebrow. “Now you’ve got my curiosity aroused.”
“I’ll be right back.” Helen hurried out into the hall. Her bulging duffel was there on the floor, and from the dining room came Worth’s voice as he paced around, still on his cell phone. Helen unzipped the duffel, lifted out the package, and carried it in to Nona. Smug as a child, she presented it to her. “Happy birthday.”
Nona said, “Thank you, dear.” She untied the ribbon and carefully unfastened the tape; Nona always saved wrapping paper. She lifted out a mound of lavender mohair, as soft as a cloud. “A shawl?”
Helen shook her head. “A bed jacket.” Eagerly, she reached out and unfolded the garment, holding it up for Nona’s inspection. “I know how you enjoy reading in bed. Sometimes I’ve seen you with a blanket tossed over your shoulders for warmth, and I thought this might be lighter and warmer.”
“It’s lovely, Helen. Did you actually make it yourself?”
“I did. I chose the yarn and I knitted it.” She swallowed her innate shyness. “I love you, Nona, and I wanted to give you a birthday present especially and only from me.”
Nona took the bed jacket and held it against her. “It’s as light as feathers.”
“But it will be warm,” Helen said.
“Yes. It will be perfect. And the color is dreamy. You are so thoughtful, Helen; I’m touched. I’ll put it near me so I can slip into it tomorrow morning. It will be my first present, starting off my ninetieth birthday just right.” Nona reached out a wrinkled hand and patted Helen’s.
Worth came in, Helen’s duffel over his shoulder. “I’m going up, Helen. Do you want to come choose a room?”
“Look what Helen gave me, Worth.” Nona held up the bed jacket.
“Nice.” Worth shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.
“I’d better go up,” Helen said.
Nona’s summer house had plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms, but anyone who had stayed there once or twice knew from experience that some of the baths had showers and not bathtubs and some had old claw-footed bathtubs but no showers, and these were lovely for long soaks but impossible for washing one’s hair. Some of the bedrooms had high four-poster twin beds, and some had old lumpy double beds, and some had queen beds, and no one claimed any room as theirs because personal sleeping arrangements changed almost every year. For example, Mee had been married for three years to Phillip and they’d insisted they couldn’t have a room with twin beds; they wanted to sleep together. But now here Mee was, divorced, so she would take, she had announced like a good brave martyr, any little room with a futon or something, someplace for one person alone.
Because Helen and Worth were late arrivals on Friday, they ended up with a choice of one of the cramped attic bedrooms or a second-floor room with a lumpy double bed. It was a pretty room. All the rooms were nicely wallpapered and softened with thick silky rugs, and the bed linens were old but clean and crisply ironed.
“This will have to do,” Worth said, and dumping his bag on the bed he began to unpack, setting his striped pajamas in the bottom drawer of the dresser, allowing Helen, as was his habit, the top two drawers.
All at once panic rinsed down Helen’s back. She could not share this pretty little room, that narrow double bed, with Worth, lying, philandering, cheating, deceitful Worth. It would be sickening to feel his large hairy male body shoved up against hers, knowing he had been lying on top of, inside of, another woman, and it would be heartbreaking if he should curl up against her—and how could he not in such a small bed—without becoming aroused and initiating sex.
“You know,” she said, and her voice seemed higher than usual, “I am too familiar with the lumps in that bed to want to attempt a night’s sleep there, and you don’t want to deal with my insomnia. I think I’ll try the sleeping porch.”
Worth kept unpacking. Socks in the drawer with the pajamas, and ironed boxer shorts, and a couple of short-sleeved polo shirts in the deep blues that brought out the blue of his eyes. “No one sleeps on the sleeping porch,” he said.
“Then why is it called a sleeping porch?” She sounded light-hearted, flippant, as she left the room and walked down the hall.
The sleeping porch, at the end of the house, had three walls of screened-in windows, a wooden floor with an old rag rug in an oval puddle of blues and browns, and a disreputable daybed shoved up against the inner wall, covered with a white chenille bedspread that probably dated from the 1930s. The spread was stained with dubious spots that looked like blood, but Helen knew it was from pizza or chocolate ice cream, because not so very long ago, when they were teenage boys, Oliver and Teddy had turned this room into their private and unassailable lair. Mismatched furniture that Nona couldn’t quite give up but didn’t know what else to do with had migrated from other rooms to the sleeping porch: a white wicker rocking chair with unraveling wicker and chipped paint, a handsome ladies’ desk with a wobbly leg, a standing brass lamp with sockets for three bulbs, only one socket of which worked, and a very ugly card table that someone—Grace, no doubt—had covered with Con-Tact shelf paper in a white-and-pink rose print. The paper was coming unstuck at several places along the edges of the tabletop.
Helen dropped her bag on the floor and collapsed on the daybed. This gave her a view of the ceiling, which was a yellowed white with a water stain in one corner. It would be cool out here at night, perhaps even cold. Nantucket Junes were notoriously unpredictable. But there were plenty of wool blankets in the linen cupboard. Besides, Helen liked a cool bedroom. The room had no closets, but someone had once hung a couple of black wrought-iron plant holders near the windows. The plants were gone, but the little metal arms would serve very well to hold a few hangers. And she didn’t need a chest of drawers. Well, she would when she returned for the summer. If she intended to sleep here for the entire summer.…
From the hall came Grace’s voice. “Mandy? I’m taking Christian down to the beach with me, all right?”
“Thanks, Mom!” Mandy called. “I’ve got to nurse the baby.”
Oh, fortunate Grace, to have that darling bright-eyed little grandson! Helen could hear the child’s high sweet voice as they went down the stairs. “Will the seals be on the beach this time, Grandma? Maybe the bottle with our message will be there in the sand! Can I take my shoes off now?”
Helen had been surprised at the satisfaction she’d felt when Grace’s daughter gave birth to Christian, the Wheelwrights’ first grandchild. She remembered visiting Mandy in the hospital, and being given the infant to hold, and gazing down at that perfect baby boy with his pearly skin and pursed mouth. He is the future, she had thought with a surprising surge of optimism. Look at the generosity of the universe, giving us this perfection, this potential, this reason for joy and hope.
Would she ever have grandchildren?
Lying on the sloping daybed, Helen thought that if she had a grandchild she wouldn’t mind so much about Worth and his affair. She had shared an extravagance of love with Worth during their lives together. When she first met Worth, her heart had warmed, as if a well-fed cat had jumped up on a windowsill, turned around, and settled down, purring, in a square of sunlight. Worth had been a lovely lover. His present affair could not erase the memories of all those past embraces.
And it did not make those memories false, did it? Worth was a splendid father, and he would be a doting, involved, attentive grandfather. If only Charlotte would fall in love! If only she would get married—never mind marriage, if only she would fall in love and have a child! Then, perhaps, Worth would lose interest in this other woman and, sharing the new adventure of grandparenting with Helen, return his attention to his family. To his wife.
But perhaps not.
And would she want him back on those terms, or was everything broken between them?
Six
Charlotte saw the cars arriving: a Yukon with Mandy, her husband and children, and a desolate-looking Mee crammed in the backseat; a Volvo with Mellie and her husband, Douglas; and then Aunt Grace and Uncle Kellogg in a cab.
Charlotte waved from her row of strawberries, feeling torn. She loved the drama of arrivals, everyone hugging and talking at once, and she didn’t want anyone to feel that she didn’t care that they were here, but she really did need to take advantage of every daylight minute on warm days. Also, she wanted to impress upon her relatives that she was out here working.
She continued picking strawberries, delicately tugging the sweet crimson fruit off the plants and dropping them in a wicker basket lined with a blue-and-white-checked napkin. She’d found a trunk of these old hand linens in the storage room in the attic, and Nona gave them to her readily. Charlotte used them to line baskets when she took the lettuces and vegetables to the restaurants that bought her produce, and everyone seemed to appreciate the attractive presentation. Even the lettuces seemed to frill a little more briskly, lying there against the crisp cotton cloth.
A squawk from a car horn made her look up. Aunt Grace waved from Granddad’s beloved Chrysler convertible, which had slumbered in the garage patiently all winter, then tore off down the road toward town and the airport. Charlotte waved back, grinning. Aunt Grace loved to drive that car.
She reached the last plant, chose the ripest berries, and then she was done. She stood up, put her hands on her back, and leaned far back, looking up at the sky, feeling the welcome stretch in her spine. It was after seven. Everyone would be more or less settled now, having cocktails, waiting for the others to arrive before sitting down to dinner.
Carrying her basket, Charlotte walked between her long rows of plants and along the edge of the garden until she came to the far end gate. She went out, double-checked that the gate was fastened with its loop of wire, and continued walking down the dirt path to the main road and her little farm stand.
Bill Cooper was there, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a Red Sox cap, holding a bunch of radishes in his hand. “Hey, Charlotte.”
“Hi, Coop. What’s up?” Remembering the conversation she’d overheard earlier in the day, she felt herself flushing.
“Do you have any more of that arugula?”
Charlotte scanned the table. Only a bag of mesclun remained of all the lettuces she’d picked and set out this morning. Her wicker basket was full of bills and coins. “Sorry. No more until tomorrow.”
“Damn. That arugula’s tasty.” He picked up the mesclun. “Well, I’ll take this. It will keep for a couple days, won’t it? I mean, I’ll eat half tonight, half tomorrow.”
Charlotte felt her flush deepen. Was he trying to inform her indirectly that he was eating alone now? “Sure,” she replied. Then she remembered. “Oh. Wait. Aren’t you coming to Nona’s birthday party?”
“Absolutely. How could I forget? Ninety. What a milestone. She’s an incredible woman, your grandmother.”
“She is. The amazing thing is how good her hearing is. And her memory. She has to walk with a cane, and she can’t go far, but mentally she’s exceptional.”
“She always was exceptional.” Coop leaned a blue-jeaned thigh against the long picnic table. “Mom and Dad tell some great stories about her.”
Charlotte thought
she was probably staring at Coop like a teen seeing her favorite rock star. She was absolutely beaming at him. “Are they coming?” Charlotte picked up the bills and patted them into a neat pile as she spoke, then tucked it and the coins into the little money bag she wore on her hip. When she got back to the shed, she’d count the money and record it on her computer.
“They wouldn’t miss it for the world. They’re flying in tomorrow morning. Staying with me.” As Charlotte lifted the red-and-white-checked tablecloth and shook it out, he asked, “Can I help you with anything?”
“No, thanks. I just don’t like to leave this out overnight.” She folded it neatly in half and then again and draped it over her arm.
“Is Oliver coming?”
“Of course! He flies in tomorrow.”
“Great. I haven’t seen him for years. Will Owen be with him?”
“Yes. They’re staying at an inn in town. Nona thinks it’s so they can have mad homosexual sex, but I know it’s because they can’t handle the chaos and clamor the Ms cause.”
“Well, little children make noise.…”
“Mandy’s children are adorable. They’re not the noisy ones. You know, Coop, you remember what it’s like in the summer, the Ms tripping around together squawking like some kind of bird with three heads.”
Coop laughed. “Still, I’ll be glad to see them again.” He reached over and plucked one strawberry from the basket sitting on the table. “Yum. Do you have more?”
“I’m picking more tomorrow morning. You’ll have to get to the table early. The strawberries go fast.”
“You’re developing quite a name for yourself, aren’t you?”
“I hope so. I know I’m a novice, but in some ways that might be good. At any rate, I sell everything I can grow.”
“You need a better sign.”
They both stared at the piece of plywood nailed to the tree. Two winters ago she had spent days on it, using patterns to trace Beach Grass Garden in Lucida Calligraphy font, which was clear but slightly curly, just a little bit Victorian, just a hint old-fashioned, like her little farm. She’d painted berries, potatoes, tomatoes, and onions around the edges of the board and slashed long green beach-grassy knolls in each corner, and when she had finished she was quite pleased with the result. But two summers of sun and rain had faded it slightly, and it did look amateurish, and now she wasn’t so sure she liked it anymore.
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